Sister Parish Committee meetings are held the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 7 pm. in the school. Newcomers are always welcome. If you have questions, please contact any of the members of the committee.
What follows are the minutes of the Wednesday, October 17, 2001 meetings.
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
Present: Mark, Mindy, Susan, Bob, Trina, Karen(briefly) Lisa, Louise and Ruth Shriver visited from the finance committee
Oct 28 Dia de Paz
5-7 PM in Hospitality Hall. Call to reserve your place. Karen
brought some sample pinata and we picked out 2 for the party.
Susan will fill them with candy. Thanks for the donations from
both Susan and Karen. Mindy will do the presentation with
pictures from the web site. Twenty minutes with 20 or so for
comments from other sister parish members and questions from
the group.
Finance Committee
Ruth asked to present some information about the parish
finances and ask us to increase our donations. The parish as a
whole ended last year 30K in the red. The capitol campaign
still needs to be completed. We thanked her and the committee
for their work that contributes to our budget.
Letters from TNII
We spent a lot of time going over 3-4 letters that have been
received over the past month. One was condolence for what has
happened in the US and a plea for peace in the world. They
asked to be informed if we were doing something as a parish
that they might join in. I asked Mindy to email them that we
have added the St. Francis Prayer for Peace to our every
liturgy to remind ourselves that we are a peace church. Also we
are having discussions about the Christian response to
terrorism.
News from the parish included a special event planned for 12-22 in relation to Padre Alfonso. We were not quite sure exactly what was happening, but as the translation gets refined it will be put on the web site. The second letter was a detail report from the women's group about all the projects of the last year that were funded by St. Joans. 35 women have participated in 3 main types of activities: Training and supplies were provided to help several women get businesses started like beauty shops, manicures, hair treatments etc. Other activities center around health promotion. And the last center around spirituality such as women in the bible, finding God's plan for each life. Since it looks like last years funds have been spent, the committee was wondering if they are needing the second $1,000 that was discussed last year during the delegation. It is great to have this news and the committee was very impressed by what the women have accomplished this past year. Note: new TNII email address: tniicristosj@itelgua.com They spent some time to develop this to incorporate the idea that our 2 parishes are linked in Christ.
Sister Parish Board
Mindy is recruiting new members for the Board and she is going
to resign. Bob Heberle is interested. The next meeting is Nov.
30-Dec 2 in Bloomington, ID. Bob may go to see if he does want
to volunteer.
Sister Parish Inc news
The Sister Parish Center in Guatemala city was broken into on
the weekend of Oct 13-14 and the computer stolen. At the same
time Ruth has been receiving threatening phone calls and has
gone into hiding. The break in and calls all look like
political harassment and maybe even more. An email from Amnesty
International asks for letters of support. On behalf of our
group, Bob Heberle has sent one. Staff are now using new email
addresses.
Candle/card sales
Tim and Mary Beth will help us conduct the sales again this
year on Nov 18. A sign up sheet was circulated and open times
remain for both masses. Notices were given for the bulletin and
instructions for set up. We will pick up the candles when the
Decorah delegation from Nebaj arrives on Nov 8. Louise will get
the exact date and time and make that connection. Karen is
putting the last cards together. She thinks the cards should
sell for $3/bundle of 5. Louise also suggested that we offer
the cards to all the delegates, youth and adults to help them
fund raise for the cost of the trip in their own networks. Then
we could match what they do up to a certain point. The group
agreed that would work.
Delegations
Mindy has written to TNII about July 19-29 for the adult and
June 14-24 for the youth. The youth group is beginning to
recruit. The flyer is being finalized. Interest in the adult
delegation hopefully will be generated from the Fiesta. Several
committee members/staff are very interested but there will
still be slots for the parish.
Other brief discussions
Political action is a key part of Sister Parish. Guatemala is
experiencing famine in some parts at this time like other
countries in Central America because of a drought.
Next Meeting: Wednesday, November 7th at 7 pm in the
Tulip Room plus Candle Work session on Thursday Nov. 15 in
the Sunflower Room. There will be no meeting on the
21st.
Louise